


The edge of the in-between

by tocourtdisaster



Series: One near perfect thing [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Asexual Character, Established Relationship, F/M, Genderswap, Not Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 20:48:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocourtdisaster/pseuds/tocourtdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes meets Irene Adler. The world doesn't quite tip onto its side, but it's a near enough thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The edge of the in-between

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gadgetorious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gadgetorious/gifts).



> For gadgetorious. Because of reasons. Lots and lots of reasons. <3 The title of this comes from the Spock's Beard song of the same name.
> 
> Something to remember for those keeping track at home: I didn't particularly like Scandal, so please don't expect this to be that story. Yes, this is based on Scandal, but it isn't Scandal-if-Sherlock-had-boobs. I've changed things, sometimes quite drastically (sometimes for the sake of this story and sometimes because the previous stories in the series demanded it), so please just keep that in mind while you're here. Thank you.

The invitation arrives on a Thursday. Sherlock doesn't pay it much mind when Mrs. Hudson brings it upstairs and sets it on the coffee table with the bills it came with; she's much too focussed on the staring contest she's having with her empty mug to pay any attention to trivialities like the post.

"Sherlock, dear, staring at that mug won't make tea magically appear in it, you know," Mrs. Hudson tuts as she straightens the piles of newspapers and casefiles on the coffee table. After a moment, the mug is plucked up by Mrs. Hudson's newly manicured fingers and four and a half minutes later (rather longer than _magical_ but still quite quickly) it's set again on the coffee table, full of tea. 

Sherlock's forgotten all about the envelope by the time John gets home, busy with re-coding the forum on her website (on John's laptop because it was here while hers is all the way in the bedroom) and reading John's ludicrously-titled blog entries. It's impossible for her not to comment on them; it's like he's _trying_ to annoy her with his florid prose and pathetic puns and surely John must know by now how to avoid run-on sentences?

"A hand, please?" John asks as he walks through the door, arms laden with the shopping. He doesn't head straight to the kitchen, though, but detours through the sitting room to press a kiss to the top of Sherlock's head where she's sitting at the desk.

Sherlock, who isn't really paying as much attention to him as she probably should be, tells him, "No hands in right now, but there's a pig's heart on the bottom shelf of the fridge. If you could not disturb it, that would be lovely."

John sighs, but Sherlock is too busy being horrified by Molly's blog (and only because Molly had linked to it in her comment on John's latest post and _why_ did Sherlock think clicking on it would lead to anything but mental anguish?) to construct a reply.

It's like watching a trainwreck or the daytime telly that John routinely subjects her to; Sherlock absolutely cannot look away or stop herself from clicking on the _Next_ link at the bottom of each post, despite the eye-searing shade pink that comprises most of the page. 

Sherlock absolutely does not jump when John places a hand on her shoulder some time later and says, "Is that Molly's blog? Please tell me you're not critiquing her grammar?"

"I'm not," Sherlock replies, trying to calm her heart rate down to something approaching resting. She really does not like being startled. She hadn't realized she'd become so engrossed in what she was reading that she completely tuned out John. That happens so rarely these days that she wasn't sure it was even possible anymore for her to not be aware of John at any given moment. "I might, though, once my retinas have healed."

"I take it, then, that there's nothing on?" John asks. He presses another kiss to the side of Sherlock's head before making his way to the couch.

"The criminal classes have been frustratingly silent lately," Sherlock says, finally dragging her eyes away from the computer screen to watch John flip through the post. It's only marginally less mind-numbing than Molly's blog, which is a thousand times better right now.

"I'm sure it won't last forever," John says, distracted as he finally gets to the large, cream envelope underneath all the bills. "Hello, what's this?"

Clearly, it's a wedding invitation (perfectly square, good quality cardstock, addressed to _Captain John H. Watson_ , envelope flap embossed with a flying dove), but if John can't figure even that out for himself, then Sherlock isn't going to help him.

The envelope yields easily to John's pocket knife and John carefully pulls out the invitation. It's cream like the envelope and covered in lace and ribbon and a tasteful amount of glitter (if any amount of glitter can be considered tasteful) and after four seconds of looking at it, John starts to laugh.

There's nothing about a wedding invitation that should inspire such a reaction. "What are you laughing at?" Sherlock asks, annoyed that she even _needs_ to ask, but John is full of surprises, a fact of which Sherlock is continually reminded.

John doesn't answer in words, just holds the invitation out. Sherlock pushes herself out of her seat and plucks it from John's fingers once she's close enough to reach it.

For all that it's overly decorated, the invitation seems to be pretty standard fare. There's nothing here that Sherlock can see that should have induced such a reaction in John, but Sherlock is quite possibly physically incapable to admitting to that, so she does her best to convey her need for more information with a raised eyebrow and pursed lips.

"Look at the names," John suggests, still giggling intermittently. 

Theodore William Murray III and Wilhelmina Margaret Callahan. 

"The groom is obviously Bill Murray, who served with you in Afghanistan and who regularly comments on your blog," Sherlock says. "Am I supposed to know who the bride is?"

"No," John says. He takes a deep breath, obviously trying to keep his laughter at bay. "I've only met her a few times, but I know she's named after her grandmother and no one ever calls her anything but Billie."

Bill and Billie. Unfortunate for them, but Sherlock can almost see why John would laugh at such infantile humor. _Almost_.

John must be able to see this on her face because he groans, "Oh, come on, Sherlock, it's funny!"

Sherlock doesn't bother to reply to that, but brings up a more important issue. "This says that the wedding is in Dublin."

"Surely London can do without you for a few days," John says, pushing himself to his feet. His knees pop loudly and John grimaces and neither of them say anything about encroaching middle age, though Sherlock is certain she's not the only one thinking about it. "Fancy a cuppa?"

Sherlock hums an affirmative, her mind suddenly too busy for words. She's imagining John as an old man, gray (grayer than he is now), softer around the middle, maybe with a limp that's not completely in his head, still wearing his jumpers and enjoying his evening cup of tea. It's easy to picture him in a little cottage in the country, with a dog underfoot and a little garden to tend. What's harder to picture is herself in that scenario; Sherlock has never really imagined that she'd reach old age, but thinking of John in his old age has made her want to see that with her own eyes one day, to grow old with him.

It's such a sentimental idea, _growing old together_ , but it's becoming more and more desirable the longer she and John cohabitate. It should be distasteful at the very least, but it's the exact opposite and Sherlock isn't sure she likes the idea of becoming sentimental, even if it's only where John is concerned.

Sherlock shakes her head after a moment, but it does little to dispel the thoughts of _old age_ and _together_. She pushes them aside as best as she can in order to focus on the matter at hand.

"I simply can't leave the city right now, John," she says, setting the invitation back on the coffee table and following John into the kitchen. Sherlock has little interest in making tea, but she loves to watch John do it for her. "I'm far too busy."

"No you're not," John replies, setting out their mugs and getting the sugar and milk ready. "You haven't had a case for three weeks and you refuse to even look at what's come in on your website, god only knows why. And the wedding isn't for nearly two months."

"And I shall be busy in two months, I'm sure," Sherlock says flippantly, placing her hands flat on the worktop next to their mugs. With a little hop and twist, she boosts herself up onto the counter, the bottom edge of the cabinet above pressing against her shoulder blades. "In any case, it isn't like I'm invited anyway. The invitation is made out to you."

"Plus one," John tells her. The kettle clicks off and John busies himself with teabags and pouring the water and doesn't look at her as he speaks. "The RSVP card has a checkbox for 'self and guest.' Who else would I take but you?"

There's not an answer to that that isn't obvious, so Sherlock elects not to answer. They don't speak further while the tea steeps, but John does rest his hand on Sherlock's knee and when he hands Sherlock her mug (white, with the molecular structure of caffeine on one side), she knows without even taking a sip that her tea is exactly as she likes it.

Sherlock expects John to push the issue, at least a little, but he surprises her once again. "So, I was thinking pasta for dinner. And since you've nothing on right now, I expect you to eat at least some of it."

"Angelo's?"

"I just got home from the store and you want to eat out? Why am I not surprised?" John asks. He's trying to sound annoyed, but Sherlock can see the smiling lingering at the corners of his mouth and she knows he's amused, especially when he doesn't even offer up an argument. He only says, "Fine, we'll go to Angelo's," and sighs in mock-defeat.

Sherlock doesn't even try to hide her smile.

\------

Things pick up quickly after that. Sherlock is only called in on two cases for the Met, but John's blog brings in numerous private clients, most of whom are ushered out the door almost immediately after opening their mouths. Honestly, why must people be so dull?

The thing with the comic books, however, is... interesting.

"'The Geek Interpreter,'" she reads over John's shoulder. "What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

"It's the title of the blog post," John answers, pecking away at his keyboard. Sherlock's fingers twitch at his atrocious typing skills. "You know, that thing that brings us new clients?"

"My website brings in clients as well," Sherlock says. She decides that she has nothing better to do right now than to pester John and leans her body against the back of his chair, her head resting against his.

"When was the last time we had a private client who didn't mention my blog within thirty seconds of walking in the door?" John asks. He's not smug, though he has every right to be, and his consideration of Sherlock's ego makes Sherlock's chest feel tight in a not-entirely-unpleasant fashion. "Exactly," he says after a moment of silence. "So you can just hush about my titles."

Sherlock continues to heckle him, however, but it loses its entertainment value for her when she realizes after an unforgivable amount of time that most of John's grammatical errors are committed in order to get a rise out of her and she takes up her violin in retaliation.

She's idly plucking at the strings some time later, curled up in her chair, when John sets aside his laptop and stands. He stretches with a groan and Sherlock finds her eyes drawn to the line of his waist visible where his shirt has ridden up slightly. She fingers a C major chord instead of pressing her fingers to John's flesh.

"I'm for bed," John announces and Sherlock follows his gaze to the clock. "I've got an early train tomorrow."

"An early train to where?" Sherlock demands. The look John gives her, the one that says she knows full well the answer to her question, has her wracking her memory for any mention of a trip John might have made recently, but if he's mentioned anything, Sherlock hadn't deemed it worthy of remembrance and promptly discarded the information. "An early train to where?" she repeats, this time an actual question.

John perches on the edge of his chair and says, "Bill's wedding is this weekend in Dublin. I told his best man I'd help out with the planning the stag night, so I'm going up there early, but I'll be back in a week."

A week without John. Sherlock hasn't spent more than two days apart from John in the entire time they've known each other; John's former therapist used the term _codependent_ right before John stopped seeing her, and despite Sherlock's myriad problems with the woman's therapeutic techniques, that diagnosis hadn't been completely inaccurate.

"I know you said you didn't want to go to the wedding, but I can text Bill and have him add you to the guest list if you've changed your mind," John says after a long moment of silence. 

"I haven't changed my mind," Sherlock says. "I'm certain there's something Lestrade is keeping from me and I won't risk not being in London when he finally cracks and contacts me."

"Okay," John says, getting to his feet once again. "Don't stay up all night, yeah?"

Sherlock mumbles an affirmative and kisses John goodnight when he leans down and plucks at her violin while she watches John's back disappear behind the bedroom door.

A week without John.

No problem.

\------

The first night John is gone, it takes Sherlock an unreasonably long time to figure out why she's having such a hard time getting to sleep: she can't actually remember the last time she was in her bed without John right beside (or under or on top of) her.

There had been no discussion about John all but moving into Sherlock's room, but the fact remains that he hasn't slept in his own bed in months and almost half of Sherlock's wardrobe and two drawers in the chest are full of John's clothes. There's reading glasses next to a framed picture of John's former unit on top of the nightstand closest to the door. Tucked into the corner of the frame is a picture of Sherlock in that ridiculous hat that all the papers run whenever Sherlock's name comes up in conjunction with a case. 

It's not how Sherlock would have chosen to decorate the space, but she finds she can't imagine the room without John's possessions anymore. She doesn't _want_ to.

_This is unbearable,_ she decides after two hours of tossing and turning. She's tried lying on her side, on her back, with her face pressed against John's pillow, with her head at the foot of the bed, at an angle across the width of the bed; nothing helps. She's gotten far too used to having John in her bed that she can't actually get to sleep without him there.

At half three, she tosses aside the duvet and pushes herself out of bed. She may as well do something productive if she's not going to be sleeping, and there are case studies to be read (and argued and refuted and just plain old disproven) that she's been meaning to get to for ages now and there's really no time like the present.

If she falls asleep half an hour later, wrapped in John's dressing gown with his dog tags resting between her breasts and slumped over the desk, then at least no one is there to see it.

\------

The second night John is gone, Sherlock doesn't even bother going to bed. She takes a shower and changes into her pyjamas (she takes one of John's cardigans from the hamper in the bathroom and wears it in place of her dressing gown) and settles onto the couch with the quilt taken from the end of her bed.

It's too quiet, though, even with the increased noise from the street that's not audible from her bedroom. She gropes in the crack between the cushions for the tv remote and flips through the channels until she finds a talk show full of shouting people.

The shouting people turn into different shouting people who turn into even more shouting people before Sherlock falls asleep.

She wakes up the next morning to the weather report. They're calling for rain.

\------

The third night John is gone, Sherlock sits at the kitchen table and has a staring contest with her pack of emergency cigarettes. John had tried to hide them again before he left, but he either overestimated her (because he thought she wouldn't need them and wouldn't go looking) or underestimated her (because he thought she wouldn't be able to find them).

She doesn't even want a cigarette, but she's so _bored _and chain-smoking what's left of her stash might just take her mind off of how much she hates how quiet the flat is when she's alone in it.__

__Instead, she drags her stereo into the sitting room and plays the same Vivaldi CD on repeat until she falls asleep curled up in John's chair._ _

__She wakes up when it's still dark with a crick in her neck and the sound of violins echoing in her head._ _

__

____

\------

Sherlock spends the next three nights on the streets. She's become lax in keeping her contacts up to date and decides there's no time like the present to remedy that.

(If John were here, he'd insist she do this in the daylight, when it's ostensibly safer, but John is not here and so Sherlock does what she wants and absolutely does not imagine John berating her for going out alone in the middle of the night.)

(Sherlock has never been very good at lying to herself.)

More often than not, the CCTV cameras turn to follow her and Sherlock consoles the John-in-her-head with the fact that Mycroft is obviously having her followed so there's nothing to worry about. And then she flips two fingers at a camera that swivels to follow her path and smirks when the next camera she passes remains perfectly stationary.

There's definitely something to be said for rudeness towards one's siblings.

\------

Sherlock gets home just after dawn six days after John leaves for Dublin and stops dead two steps into the sitting room.

John's coat is flung across the back of his chair. His boots are tucked under the little table next to that. His open duffle bag is on top of the coffee table. There's a faint lingering scent of toast coming from the kitchen.

Sherlock notices all of this in an instant, but it takes her mind significantly longer to process it; she hadn't been expecting any of this and it's thrown her. John is supposed to be in Ireland until tomorrow afternoon. Clearly, John is not in Ireland.

But then where is he?

It's then Sherlock's brain finally reboots and, of course, there's only one place John would be at dawn after an overnight train journey. Sherlock follows the trail of discarded clothes to the bedroom door which is pulled almost completely shut and pushes it gently open, catching it before the handle can hit the wall.

John is on his side, one hand on the pillow by his nose, and he's snuffling slightly with every breath and it's ridiculous how much Sherlock missed him these past few days and just how badly she needs to feel his skin against hers.

She toes off her shoes and strips out of her suit and lets it all drop to the floor until she's completely naked save for the dog tags she hasn't been able to talk herself into taking off since she put them on five days ago. She makes it around to her side of the bed in a handful of steps and slips beneath the covers and then she's finally, _finally_ curled around John's back, his skin sleep-warm against her breasts. She presses her nose into the space behind his ear and her nose is filled with the scent of his shampoo and stale smoke. His heart beats reassuringly steady against her palm.

John hums in his sleep and Sherlock rests her lips against the knobs on his spine and she doesn't mean to fall asleep but she must because the next thing she's truly aware of is that she's turned onto her back and that John's hand is on her waist and his stubble is scratchy against her shoulder.

"I missed you," John says to her clavicle before pressing a kiss there. "Everyone kept asking after you." Another kiss, this time to her sternum. "You should've come. You wouldn't have been completely bored." Another kiss, to her other collarbone.

"Yes, I would've," Sherlock counters and John snorts a laugh against her breast and says, "Maybe a little bored," before he shifts up the bed and presses his face against the side of her neck. Sherlock can feel her pulse beating against John's lips and it's almost unbearably intimate. 

"You know, new parents are taught have as much skin-to-skin contact with their babies as possible to encourage bonding," John says after a while, absentmindedly toying with the dog tag where they're resting against Sherlock's shoulder. 

"Is that what we're doing?" Sherlock asks, rolling John onto his back and settling atop him, displacing his hand; she can feel his burgeoning morning erection pressed against her thigh through the thin fabric of his pants. "Encouraging bonding?" 

"If that's what you want to call it," John says, and the fake leer he gives her is so ridiculous that she can't help but laugh and then kiss him. It's not a kiss that's leading to anything other than a leisurely snog in bed (and possibly an orgasm for John in a bit if the press of his hips against hers doesn't let up) and Sherlock can't think of any other way she'd like to spend her morning than exactly where she is.

Of course, that's when there's a knock at the door and Mrs. Hudson calling, "Dears, there are people at the door for you!" Sherlock and John sigh in concert and they separate with one more kiss.

John goes through the door to the bathroom, most likely for a quick shower (he hadn't bothered with one last night before he went to bed, even though that's usually the first thing he does when he gets back from a long trip; conclusion: he'd wanted to be close to Sherlock more than he wanted to wash off the grime from hours on a train), while Sherlock grabs the closest item of clothing (a green plaid shirt, one of John's, barely long enough to cover her arse) and throws it on before stepping out into the kitchen.

(She hears the shower turn on and smiles herself. It wasn't a difficult deduction, but every little bit she gets right about John is a victory to be savored.) 

There are two men (professional suits, military haircuts, gun bulges along their ribcages) standing in the middle of the sitting room and watching her. Sherlock doesn't acknowledge them at all as she goes about making coffee for herself. She decides to make enough for John, too; she tells herself it's only because he looked so tired and not at all because she missed him terribly while he was gone.

"Ms. Holmes," the shorter of the two men says and Sherlock's only acknowledgement is to briefly glance in his direction. "We need you to get dressed and come with us."

"Hmm, I think not," Sherlock says, stirring two sugars into her coffee and taking a long sip. She hears the shower turn off; though John enjoys leisurely showers when possible, he's still more than capable of a two minute army shower. He'll be joining Sherlock and their guests in another ninety seconds at most.

"I'm going to have to insist," the man says, taking two steps towards her, not threatening exactly, but definitely hinting at the idea of forcing her to do his master's bidding. "Please get dressed, Ms. Holmes."

"I'd like to see you make me," Sherlock says and takes another sip of her coffee.

"It would be better for you if it didn't come to that." The man takes another step forward.

"Didn't come to what?" John asks, stepping into the kitchen. He's pulling a cardigan over a button down shirt and his feet are completely bare, but other than that, he doesn't look like he was naked in bed less than five minutes ago. "And who are you?"

"My employer sent me to fetch you and Ms. Holmes for a consultation," the man tells John and Sherlock heroically refrains from declaring it all obvious and boring. "I was just asking Ms. Holmes to get dressed so that we don't keep my employer waiting any longer than necessary."

"And who exactly is your employer?" John asks. He takes the coffee mug that Sherlock passes him, but doesn't look away from the men in the sitting room. He's not overly defensive, not yet, but he's not far from it. Sherlock leans against the counter and settles in to watch the pissing match.

"I'm afraid I'm not authorized to tell you that."

"Then I'm afraid we're not going to be joining you," John retorts. "You can see yourselves out."

The man reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out an envelope. "I was instructed to give this to you if you were hesitant to join us." He takes one step, far enough to set the envelope down on the kitchen table, before he retreats back to the doorway. Sherlock, her curiosity as always overwhelming her sense of self-preservation, makes a grab for the envelope before the man has even let go of it completely.

Sherlock pulls out a folded sheet of paper, sees a single sentence written on it and groans. "Bloody Mycroft," she mutters, tossing the paper at John on her way by him. She's not in the mood to deal with her brother while trouser-less, even if it would serve him right for ruining her morning.

\------

_For God's sake, Sherlock, get in the car. -MH_

\------

Their escorts don't bother to make conversation in the car, despite John's attempts to engage them.

"They could at least tell us where we're going," John mutters after ten minutes of sullen silence. "And are you absolutely sure that note was from your brother? Because I'd rather not be kidnapped today if possible."

"It was definitely Mycroft's handwriting," Sherlock assures him. "And we are, in fact, currently in the process of being kidnapped."

"Yes, but this is a benign kidnapping," John says, twisting in his seat to face Sherlock. "There's not a murderous psychopath at the end of the ride who wants us both dead, so it hardly even counts."

"I do believe you need to review the definition of kidnapping," Sherlock tells him, to which John only smiles. 

Sherlock takes out her phone and pulls up the GPS, anything to get an idea of where Mycroft is having them taken this time. John glances at the screen before turning back to the urban landscape sliding past them. Sherlock's brain ticks through the possibilities for their destination, marking them off her mental list as they move farther away from Baker Street.

"Bloody bastard," she mutters, stabbing the home button on her phone and finally looking up from the screen.

"Sherlock, please tell me we're just taking the scenic route to some abandoned car park and that we're not actually headed for Buckingham Palace," John says. 

"I thought you didn't like it when I lied to you."

"This can't be my life," John says disbelievingly. "There's no way this is real. I'm still asleep and this is all just a dream and I'll wake up in a few minutes to you blowing up the kitchen again."

"I have never blown up the kitchen," Sherlock argues. Their car slows to a stop. Neither Sherlock nor John make a move to exit the vehicle. 

"So why is there a scorch mark on the ceiling above the table that you think I haven't noticed?"

Sherlock is saved from having to come up with a response by her door being opened from the outside. 

"Ms. Holmes, Doctor Watson, if you'll follow me please?"

Sherlock ignores John's wide-eyed stares as they're led into the Palace, and instead focuses on their escort and the path he's leading them down.

"I am seriously resisting the temptation to steal an ashtray right about now," John mutters as they wind through corridors and down hallways and Sherlock huffs out a little laugh even as her eyes track over every surface they pass.

She isn't actually planning on stealing an ashtray, knows that John was mostly joking, but she has a three second window where both John and their escort have stepped around a corner and she's unobserved and she can't really help herself.

It fits wonderfully in her coat pocket, just large enough that it won't roll around when Sherlock moves and small enough that it doesn't cause an obvious bulge. It's perfect.

"Please keep up, Ms. Holmes," their escort calls back to her and Sherlock can't even summon up the will to be annoyed at his tone of voice, she's so thrilled about the weight of the crystal against her hip. 

She's still smiling when they're led to a moderately sized reception area and left alone (but not unobserved; the cameras are discreet, but obvious to anyone looking for them). Sherlock lets John help her with her coat and folds the wool over crossed legs once she's seated on a sofa that is most likely worth more than all of their combined possessions.

"What are we doing here?" John asks from beside her. "I mean, seriously, Sherlock, why are we in Buckingham Palace?"

Sherlock makes a show of glancing around, even after she notices Mycroft skulking just beyond the borders of the reception area, and makes her reply to John suitably (and subtly) antagonistic. "To see the Queen, I would imagine."

Mycroft clears his throat loudly as he steps into the room and Sherlock can't resist the temptation to say, "Oh, looks like I was right."

(Sherlock has always been awful at resisting temptation, but it's worth it this time to hear John giggling beside her; the sour look on Mycroft's face is just a wonderful bonus.)

"Do grow up, Sherlock," Mycroft chides her as he seats himself across from them. "Juvenile behavior is quite unbecoming in a woman of your age."

"Yes, I do live to please you, don't I?"

"Children, please, can we not do this here?" John interrupts before Mycroft can respond, but that doesn't stop Mycroft from glaring at Sherlock like this argument is somehow her fault. (Sherlock is mature enough to admit, at least to herself, that it actually _is_ her fault, but that's not something she'll ever admit to her brother.) "Now, Mycroft, why exactly are we here?"

"I am to engage your services on behalf of a client who wishes to remain anonymous," Mycroft says and Sherlock scoffs. 

"Hardly anonymous if we're sitting in the bloody Palace."

"Be that as it may, your client wishes to keep her name out of any contracts related to this matter," Mycroft says. "Officially, I am your client. Any and all payments for services rendered will come from my personal accounts. You are to make no mention of any other client, real or supposed, in connection with this case. Are we clear?"

"Perfectly," John answers when Sherlock fails to. "So what, exactly, are the details of this case of yours?"

"I believe I can be of some assistance in that matter." A tall man, taller than even Mycroft, steps into the room, followed by a girl carrying a tea tray. John, forever a soldier, automatically stands; Sherlock remains in her seat. "Doctor Watson, Ms. Holmes, it's a pleasure to meet you both." John shakes the man's proffered hand. Sherlock's hands stay folded over her coat.

"You'll have to excuse my sister's intransigence, Harry," Mycroft says. "I do believe she's in the midst of a tantrum."

"Just tell me why we're here before I decide this is a waste of my time," Sherlock says. "Which, for your information, is becoming more and more likely the longer I sit here."

"My employer requests your assistance in a matter of utmost secrecy," the man says, taking the cup of tea offered to him by Mycroft. 

"What sort of matter?" John asks, helping himself to a cup of tea. Sherlock pointedly ignores the cup Mycroft prepares and sets on the table in front of her.

"A matter involving Irene Adler," the man says, as if Sherlock has any idea who Irene Adler is.

Mycroft hands Sherlock a manilla envelope taken from the briefcase at his side. "Irene Adler. Professionally known as The Woman."

The envelope is full of photos of a woman who is presumably this Irene Adler. There's a print-out of biographical data from a website that Sherlock briefly glances over. It's becoming more and more clear with every passing moment what line of work this Adler woman is in, but Sherlock needs to know for sure before she can form any theories about her. "Professionally?"

"She prefers the term 'dominatrix,'" Mycroft says. Sherlock just hums, mentally correcting her conclusion of _high class hooker_ , and flips through the photos once more. "Don't be alarmed," Mycroft continues, and something in his tone makes Sherlock look up from her perusal of the photos of Ms. Adler. "It's to do with sex."

"I do in fact know what a dominatrix is," she says archly. She meets Mycroft's eye and adds, "And sex doesn't alarm me." It's a misconception he's had her entire adult life, equating her lack of sexual interest with a fear of sexual acts. While that may have been true for a very short period of time when she was quite a bit younger, it hasn't been true for over a decade now and especially not since John entered her life.

"How would you know?" Mycroft asks and it's shocking to Sherlock how out of touch Mycroft's intelligence is in this aspect. He knows that she and John are, for lack of a better phrase, _in a relationship_ , has tried to dissuade Sherlock from pursuing it on several different occasions (and has almost succeeded more than once), has seen John kiss her hello and goodbye, but here he is, firm in his belief that Sherlock knows nothing of sex in the practical sense.

She wants to say _John and I participate in sex acts on a fairly regular basis_ , and _I've never come so hard as the time John suckled me while I fingered myself_ , and _Since compromise is the hallmark of a good relationship, I'm contemplating performing fellatio on John for his birthday this year_ , but she doesn't say any of these things.

What she does is this: she glances at John out of the corner of her eye, still calmly sipping his tea, like he regularly uses Her Majesty's second-finest china for his afternoon cuppa, before fixing her gaze back on Mycroft and saying, timing herself to John's next sip, "John's been in Dublin for most of a week and only got home late last night. When your goons came to kidnap us, I was wearing nothing but one of his shirts. Feel free to draw your own conclusions from the available facts."

Mycroft's smug expression immediately sours and Sherlock can hear John trying not to choke on his tea and Sherlock's self-satisfied smirk is directly solely at Mycroft and not at all at John's fumbling next to her and she is in no way charmed by his muttered, "I'm glad I updated my will last month since I'm pretty sure I'm just going to disappear from the face of the earth after today."

"Nonsense," Sherlock says, setting down the photos of Ms. Adler. "It's more likely that you'll have never existed at all after Mycroft's people are through with you." She holds her hand out to John, who sighs but passes her his tea cup. Not sweet enough for her taste and too milky, but better to steal John's tea than drink the no doubt perfect cup prepared for her by Mycroft.

"Now," she says, splitting her attention between Mycroft and the man next to him, "why don't you tell me what you _really_ want from me?"

"Ms. Adler contacted us last week," the man beside Mycroft, the one who'd been called Harry (though Sherlock is almost certain that's not the man's given name), says. "She told us she had several photographs of a young person, someone very dear to my employer, in a compromising position. We would like for those photographs to no longer be in her possession."

"So pay the blackmail," Sherlock tells him, waving her tea cup as dismissively as it is possible to dismissively wave a dainty porcelain cup. "Get your photographs and put a tighter leash on your employer's family."

John snorts and, realizing what she's just said, Sherlock smirks; the innuendo had been unintended, but now that it's out there, she's damn well going to take credit for it. "If that's all, John and I really must be going." 

She's halfway to her feet, John still sitting and not quite caught up to what's going on ( _still stuck on Mycroft's implied threat, like Mycroft could ever endanger the most important person in Sherlock's life and not end up back in hospital_ ) when Mycroft says, "She doesn't want money. She said she told us for insurance purposes only."

"Oh, that _is_ interesting," Sherlock says as she resettles next to John. Of course Adler wouldn't risk a scandal, not with the sort of clientele she no doubt has; having her name splashed all over the papers would, at the very least, cause her financial ruin. But she contacted the palace for a reason. All Sherlock needs to do is figure out what that reason is. "Insurance, you said?" she asks Mycroft before turning to Harry. "What were her exact words?"

Mycroft and Harry exchange a look. After a moment, Mycroft pulls out his case and pulls a single sheet of paper out. It's in Sherlock's hands before Mycroft's case is even closed.

John is a warm weight against her side as he reads the letter over her shoulder. It's short, barely half a page typed, but a veritable fount of information ( _good quality paper, very heavy; no letterhead, not that Adler would need letterhead in her line of business; printed on a laser printer and signed with a fountain pen; very professionally written, despite the contents; and there, in the final paragraph, the words 'insurance policy.'_ ).

"What else does she have?" Sherlock asks once she's read the letter over twice. Mycroft is far too disciplined for his facial expression to give anything away, but Harry has never met Sherlock before and has a wealth of ticks he thought suppressed that are all but screaming at Sherlock. "She clearly isn't interested in blackmail or in releasing the photographs otherwise, ergo she has something else you want, something that can be easily destroyed or otherwise gotten rid of that you need back intact, and you're using the retrieval of the photographs as a cover. So, I repeat, what does she have?"

"That is of no concern to you," Mycroft says. "Your job is to retrieve the photographs, not to ask questions."

"I need _facts_ , Mycroft," Sherlock says. "I can't solve a case without all the relevant data."

"And you have it," Mycroft counters. It's clear to Sherlock that, despite their antagonism, Mycroft isn't holding back information because it pleases him to see her frustrated, which his normal motivation; no, he's withholding information because he truly believes that Sherlock doesn't need to know. "Whatever else Ms. Adler may or may not have in her possession is not relevant to your task. Are we understood, Sherlock?"

"Perfectly," Sherlock answers, far from appeased, but willing to back down. For now anyway. 

"Good," Mycroft says. He must know that Sherlock's interest has only multiplied after being denied, but he shows no sign of it. "Now, I do believe you have a case to be getting on with."

And if that isn't a dismissal, then Sherlock is the queen. And speaking of the queen. "Do let Her Majesty know that if she's trying to keep her smoking habit secret, it would be best not to have such ostentatious ashtrays in public areas. People could get the wrong idea."

John coughs, trying to hide his laughter, and follows her out, leaving Mycroft and Harry to stare after them.

\------

John doesn't even bother trying to hide his giggles in the cab taking them back home when Sherlock produces the crystal ashtray from her coat pocket; when she hands it to him, he holds in gently, like it's the most precious gift she could have given him.

And that's...good.

\------

"So," John asks once they're home, "how exactly are we going to go about this whole thing?"

"Very carefully," Sherlock answers, plopping down into her chair, legs outstretched and crossed at the ankles. She absentmindedly taps out the drum beat from a song she heard in a shop last week on the armrests as she considers the problem at hand.

By all accounts, Irene Adler appears to be an intelligent woman, her letter to the palace notwithstanding. (Honestly, if you're trying to keep something not-strictly-legal safe, why would you broadcast that you have it to the people who would most like for you to not have it? Possibly Adler isn't as intelligent as she would like others to believe she is. This could work in Sherlock's favor.) They're going to need to do something (moderately) clever to get past her defenses.

John presses a mug of tea into Sherlock's hand before he lowers himself into his own armchair. He nudges Sherlock's feet where they're encroaching into his space and says, "I'm assuming we can't just go up and knock on her door, then?"

Sherlock glances sharply at John, but he isn't even looking at her; he's fiddling with one of the newspapers that Mrs. Hudson had brought up while they were gone, completely unaware of his accidental burst of genius. Because, yes, that might actually work.

"No, that's exactly what we're going to do," she tells him, taking an appreciative sip of tea. Perfect.

"Okay, then," John says. And then, "Wait, really?"

"It's genius, John," Sherlock says. A plan is starting to coalesce in her mind; it's not perfect, but it's exciting and that's possibly more important to her than it being foolproof. "I can't believe I didn't think of it first."

"I do occasionally have good ideas, you know," John huffs, but Sherlock can see he's pleased at her not-quite-implied praise. "Though I'm not sure that this is one of them."

"Of course it is," Sherlock says. She sets her mug on the floor next to her chair and springs to her feet. "Come on, let's go."

John groans, but doesn't otherwise complain when Sherlock pulls him to his feet and forces him back into his coat and chivvies him down the stairs with a hand planted firmly between his shoulderblades. 

"So what's the plan here?" John asks once they're settled in the back of yet another cab, headed for the address Mycroft's assistant had texted to Sherlock. "I'm guessing there's more to it than just knocking on her door?"

"We're going to hire her in order to gain access to the house," Sherlock tells him. "Once inside, I'll need you to cause a distraction so that I can get to the photos. Easy."

"Just so long as the distraction doesn't involve being tied up and whipped, I think it's a workable start to a plan," John says. "What's the rest of it?"

"There's too many unknown variables for a more concrete plan," Sherlock says. "We'll have to play it by ear once we're inside."

"Oh, because _that's_ always gone so well for us," John counters, but doesn't argue the point otherwise.

Sherlock has the cab drop them off at the end of the block. It's not going to look good, them walking down the street to Adler's house, but being dropped off in a cab (and not a private car) would look even worse. Everything about this needs to look right or they won't even make it through the front door, let alone get anywhere near the photographs.

John takes her hand two houses from their destination and tucks it into the crook of his elbow. "May as well look like we like each other, yeah?"

John is the one to ring the bell, but Sherlock is the one to reply to the question of, "How can I help you?" from a woman over the intercom.

"We're here to engage the services of Ms. Adler."

"Applications are available on Ms. Adler's website," the woman, presumably an assistant of some sort, says. "If approved, Ms. Adler will contact you within the week to set up your initial session."

"But we've come all this way," Sherlock says, playing up her accent, emphasizing the old money aspect of her past. She wishes she'd made John wear something other than jeans and his shooter's jacket, but it's too late to change that now. "Is there no way we can speak with Ms. Adler today?"

There's silence from the intercom for a long moment, long enough for a quick consultation before the door opens and they're facing a woman with vividly red hair and a smirk firmly in place.

"Please come in," she says, stepping aside to let them through the door, which she closes behind them. "Ms. Adler was able to spare a few moments to speak with you both. If you'll follow me."

They're led into a sitting room and Sherlock finds herself yet again being helped out of her coat and sitting on yet another couch in yet another place that she and John don't belong. Normally this wouldn't bother her, but Sherlock is still off balance from the last few days alone and all she wants is to be at home with John, recovering her equilibrium.

"You must be my persistent would-be clients."

Sherlock turns towards the voice and manages to restrain her first reaction to Irene Adler to a mere raised eyebrow; John lets out an audible gasp from beside her.

"I'll ask you to pardon my outfit," she says as she steps into the room. The sheer robe (with not a single stitch underneath) that she's wearing leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, but Sherlock's eyes are drawn to the length of the other woman's bare legs and how the sky-high heels she's wearing affect the shape of her calves. "I was in the middle of a session, but I can spare you a few minutes of my time. Kate tells me that you're interested in becoming clients of mine. But that's not why you're really here, is it, Ms. Holmes?"

Sherlock's eyes snap back to Adler's smirking face even as she feels John tensing beside her. "What gave us away?"

"Aside from your manner and Doctor Watson's attire, you mean?" Adler is still smirking as she seats herself in the chair adjacent to the sofa. "I'm a big fan of Doctor Watson's blog. It's all so fascinating, these real-life detective stories."

"Could you please put some clothes on?" John asks rather abruptly. Sherlock glances at him, notices that he's pointedly not looking at anything but Adler's face. "Something? Anything?"

Sherlock holds out her coat, maintains eye contact with Adler until the other woman takes it and wraps herself in it.

"Can I presume that you're here for the photographs of the princess?" Adler asks once she's resettled in her chair. 

"You may."

"Then I'm sorry to say that you're wasting your time." Adler glances between Sherlock and John. "If I may ask, what exactly was your grand plan for obtaining them? Did you even have a plan at all?"

"Only a moron would enter a potentially dangerous situation without a plan," Sherlock says at the same time she treads on John's foot to keep him silent. "That doesn't mean I'm willing to share what that plan was in case part of it is still feasible."

"Smart woman," Adler croons. "But not smart enough. I'm going to have to ask you both to leave now."

"You know we can't do that, Ms. Adler."

"Then it appears that we're at an impasse. However shall we solve this?"

John clears his throat. "You could just save all of us a lot of trouble and give us the photos. You're going to end up losing them eventually, if not to us, then to the people who follow us. Probably the secret service."

There's a commotion from out in the hallway, running feet and loud voices, and Adler's eyes slide to the painting over the fireplace. Sherlock thinks, _Gotcha_.

She's on her feet before Adler can so much as blink. The frame is stuck solidly to the wall, its edges smooth. There has to be a release somewhere, but if not on the frame, then where? She feels along the bottom edge of the mantel until her fingers run across a switch. A few pounds of pressure exceeded and the painting lifts up and away to reveal a safe.

"Very clever, Ms. Adler, but you should learn to control your reactions," Sherlock tells her as she studies the keypad. By the make and model of the safe, it's reasonable to assume that the passcode is six digits. Heaviest oil deposits are on the three, indicating it's the first digit and (possibly another as well) in the code. After that, she's stumped and Sherlock doesn't like to be stumped. "What's the code?"

"I'd tell you, but you already know it," Adler answers over the growing commotion from the hall.

Sherlock squints at the keypad, but doesn't have time to give Adler's answer any thought before the door to the sitting room crashes open and three armed men come striding in, guns held at the ready.

"What's the meaning of this?" Adler demands as she's pulled to her feet by one of the gunmen. John is shoved from the couch and marched to a clear patch of floor before being forced to his knees "Who are you and what are you doing in my home?"

"Shut up, Ms. Adler," the apparently leader says and Sherlock thinks, _American. Interesting._ "Everyone, hands on your heads."

"Ah, of course," she murmurs to herself. She's pushed to her knees so close to John that their upraised elbows are bumping each other. "I do hope you didn't traumatize my client too terribly."

"Shut up," the man snaps. "It would give me great pleasure to splatter your brain all over the wallpaper, which is what'll happen if you open your mouth again."

"Don't you want me on the floor, too?" Sherlock interjects, trying to diffuse the situation. She ignores John's stare burning a hole in the side of her head, begging her not to goad the men with guns.

"You're going to open this safe for me, Ms. Holmes." The man shifts his stance, planting his feet firmly and pointing the muzzle of his gun directly at Sherlock's chest.

"I can't," Sherlock tells him, knowing even as she says it that her denial will do her no good, despite the fact that it's the truth. "I don't know the code."

"We were listening to your conversation. I heard her say you already know it."

"She was lying," Sherlock says, not daring to look anywhere but at the American; she's trying to convince him through eye contact alone that she's telling the truth. "I don't know the code."

"I think you do. Maybe a little incentive will jog your memory," he says. "On the count of three, shoot Doctor Watson." 

Sherlock's eyes snap to John and the man behind him pressing the barrel of his gun to John's head, and Sherlock's heart pounds so hard in her chest that she can feel herself swaying in time to her pulse. Her fingers are starting to go numb from being upheld for so long. John's breathing is audible, even from several feet away.

"One." 

Sherlock forces herself to think of everything she knows about Irene Adler. Dominatrix (not a high-class call girl despite Mycroft's obvious beliefs), doesn't actually have sex with her clients (despite the sexual connotations of her chosen profession, she wouldn't risk her reputation like that), late twenties (definitely born in the eighties, possibly earlier, possibly almost Sherlock's age), slim but (very obviously) curvaceous. 

"Two."

_Think!_ Sherlock berates herself. What is Adler most proud of? Not her age, no, she obviously plays herself younger than she actually is. Her weight? No, not quite, but almost there, Sherlock knows she's close, but close isn't good enough, not with a gun to John's head, and Sherlock forces herself to look away from where the gun barrel is pressed to the skin behind his ear (in almost the exact spot she likes to press her nose to when they're in bed together), finds her eyes landing on Adler. Adler, who glances down at her body so quickly that Sherlock almost misses it.

"Three."

"Wait!" Sherlock snaps at the same time as the American, hating the way her voice cracks on that single syllable and how she feels herself sag with relief when he holds up a restraining hand, halting John's execution. Sherlock clears her throat and tries not to notice John's ragged breathing across the room. "I'll do it, just give me a moment."

Sherlock drops her hands, holds them away from her sides, wiggles her fingers to encourage circulation and takes a deep breath as she stares at the numbers on the safe. She allows her eyes to close for a long second, thinks _Please, god, let me be right,_ and presses the numbers that she remembers reading in Adler's biographical information just this morning.

Thirty-two.

(There's no way Adler hasn't somehow booby-trapped her safe. She'd been expecting Sherlock, had to have known she'd find the safe, but _how_?)

Twenty-four.

(Most likely a projectile meant to take out whoever opened the safe next, which means that Sherlock, that _John_ needs to be on the ground when the door is opened.)

Thirty-four.

(Sherlock wishes she and John had come up with code words for situations such as these, with egomaniacal Americans holding them at gunpoint while Sherlock opens a booby-trapped safe. But still, there has to be some way to warn him.)

The safe beeps twice as the lock disengages.

"Thank you, Ms. Holmes. Now, if you'll just open the door for me."

Sherlock grasps the safe's handle as slowly as she can, her mind whirling. There has to be a signal she can give John, a phrase or action or _something_ to get him to duck out of the way of the gun still held at the ready at the back of his skull.

There was a book, weeks ago, about a series of thefts in the Vatican. It was a trashy mystery that John brought home one day on a lark. Sherlock had read a chapter and gotten so frustrated at the simplistic writing and moronic plot that she'd thrown it at the wall, narrowly missing John's head as he ducked out of the way.

It's not much, but it's something and that something is better than the big lot of nothing she had two second ago. It takes her another two seconds to remember the title of the book. She hopes John makes the connection.

_Please let John make the connection,_ Sherlock thinks.

" _Vatican Cameos_ ," Sherlock says and then bursts into motion, pulling the safe open as she drops into a crouch, holding still for the barest moment before swinging her leg around and knocking the American's feet out from under him. She's on his chest almost immediately, her forearm pressed against his windpipe, doing her best to render him unconscious as quickly as possible. 

There's the sound of two gunshots and bodies slamming into each other behind her, but Sherlock can't spare the scuffle any of her attention, not with a gun suddenly pointed directly at her face.

She pulls away slowly, hands once again held up near her head. She's still kneeling over the American's chest, but shifts so that most of her weight is on her knees rather than his ribcage. The gun's aim never wavers.

"Nice try, Ms. Holmes," the man says hoarsely. There's bruising starting to bloom across his neck.

"If I ever see you again, I'll kill you," she tells him. It's not a threat; it's a statement of fact.

He doesn't get a chance to reply before the insole of John's shoe crashes into the side of his head. 

"Took you long enough," she grumbles as John helps her to her feet. She can't help but run her eyes over him as he leans down to grab the American's gun from the man's limp grasp. John appears to be unharmed, but appearances can be deceiving. 

(And Sherlock should know; she's passed herself off as a man [or a teenager or old widow or homeless person] often enough to know that people see what they want to see. John isn't okay until she's able to verify it with her own eyes [and preferably hands].)

"So sorry, I'll be quicker next time there's a gun to my head," John says. Sherlock is mesmerized by the way he flips his coat up to tuck the gun into the back of his jeans. He starts slightly when Sherlock places her hand over the gun, pressing it into his lower back.

"Better that we just avoid this situation completely in the future, don't you think?"

"As touching as this is," Adler says from behind Sherlock, where Sherlock had almost managed to forget she was, "don't you think we should check to make sure there aren't more of them in my house?"

Adler starts to reach for the camera phone still safely ensconced in the safe (behind the gun that had been rigged up to fire straight at the next person who opened the door) and Sherlock grabs her wrist without looking. "I think letting you get your hands on that phone rather defeats the entire purpose of us being here, don't you think?" Sherlock asks, letting Adler's hand drop. 

The phone is small, but clearly incredibly expensive if the crystal-encrusted case is anything to go by. Sherlock gives it a little flip through the air; the sound it makes as it slaps into her palm is incredibly satisfying, though not nearly so much as the look on Adler's face.

"We need to call the police," John says, crouching over the man who'd been holding him at gunpoint, who now has an oozing hole in his chest. He checks the man's pulse and shakes his head and Sherlock has to stop herself from smiling; John is always telling her that smiling is completely inappropriate when a person has been killed. 

(Sherlock remembers giggling at a crime scene so long ago now and wonders if the rules are different if the man killed hadn't been a good person to begin with. She makes a mental note to ask John later.)

(Although, if that rule were in place then it wouldn't be inappropriate to smile now, but she'd rather hedge her bets and so she keeps her expression as neutral as she can.)

John isn't exactly enamoured of how she goes about calling the police (so much easier to make others deal with the tedium of dealing with the officer on the switchboard, no matter how much John protests to her using a firearm in the middle of London), but she doesn't spare his displeasure any thought as she sends him to secure the house's rear entrance before following Adler up to the first floor and into the bedroom at the very end of the hall.

Adler's assistant is splayed out on the floor and Sherlock is at her side, checking for a pulse, before she even registers that she's in motion. (She'll blame John for that later; she never used to _care_ before.) There's a used syringe on the floor by the other woman's hip.

"Oh, Kate'll be fine," Adler assures her from where she's peering through the lace curtains and down the street. "She's used to the after-effects by now."

Sherlock makes a cardinal error next, one which she'll later berate herself for endlessly, and turns her back on Adler to check that the ensuite is empty. An instant later, she feels Adler's hand on her left arm and realizes the touch is nothing more than a distraction half a second before she feels the stab of a needle into her right arm. Sherlock shoves Adler's phone in her trouser pocket while the other woman twists away, carelessly dropping the syringe to the floor.

_Stupid, stupid,_ Sherlock scolds herself. She should've seen something like this coming after the setup in the safe, but she was too caught up in winning to realize that the game wasn't over yet.

Sherlock whirls to face Adler, but whatever was in the syringe is incredibly fast-acting and Sherlock is thrown off balance by her own momentum as the drug works its magic. She stumbles against the footboard of the bed and uses it to hold herself up against her sudden lack of equilibrium. 

In the time it takes Sherlock to blink, Adler is suddenly in front of her, riding crop held at the ready. "Give it to me," Adler says, shifting her weight onto her front foot. "Give me my phone."

"No," Sherlock says, or at least tries to say; what actually comes out is less of a word than the consonant sound dragged out for several beats too long. She shakes her head, hoping to clear the sudden cobwebs from her mind, but it just makes her even dizzier. If she were to look down, she's sure her knuckles would be completely white from her grip on the footboard.

"Last chance, Ms. Holmes," Adler says and then she's tensing her arm and striking out with her riding crop, catching Sherlock across the ribs. It's not a particularly strong blow, but in combination with the drugs, it's more than enough to send Sherlock crashing to the floor not far from Adler's assistant.

There are hands pawing at Sherlock's trouser pockets and Sherlock can feel the phone being slipped free from its confines. She tries to grab for it, for Adler, but the drugs have completely stolen her depth perception and all she manages to do slam her hand into the bedstead. 

"Shh, shh," Adler soothes, petting Sherlock's hair. Sherlock wants nothing more than to twist away, but she can't manage even that small movement. "This has been fun, my dear, but now I really must be going."

Adler presses a lingering kiss to Sherlock's cheek that Sherlock can't even hope to shake off; her motor control is a thing of the past, soon to be joined by her consciousness. There is the sensation of lips against Sherlock's earlobe, an exhalation, a whispered, "Goodbye, Sherlock Holmes," and then Adler is gone.

Sherlock isn't certain how long she lies there, drifting in a haze of unknown pharmaceuticals, before she feels footsteps reverberating through the floorboards and hears John's exclamation of "Jesus Christ, Sherlock." John's hands are firm but gentle as he manipulates Sherlock into the recovery position and checks her pulse and respiration. There's a hand pushing her hair away from her face, shaking almost imperceptibly (or is that her shaking?).

"What did you give her?" John asks and Sherlock is confused for a long moment before she realizes that Adler must still be present, gloating over her victory.

"Don't worry, it won't kill her. I've used it on loads of my friends." Adler's voice is echoing oddly. Is she in the ensuite? "Just make sure she doesn't choke on her own vomit, unless you want an attractive corpse on your hands."

"Wait!" John's voice is loud and coming from right above Sherlock's head and it's the simplest deduction to make that Adler has finally made her grand exit. 

There is the sound of sirens in the distance coming ever nearer and Sherlock forces herself to try to stand, to sit, to _move_ before the police arrive. All she manages is a full-body twitch that slams the side of her head against the floorboards and then John's hands are on her, gently restraining her.

"Shh, just stay still, help will be here soon," he says, a thread of frantic worry underlying the reassurance and Sherlock wonders who he's trying to reassure, himself or her? "Everything'll be okay, Sherlock, just stay still."

But Sherlock wouldn't be who she is if she meekly did what others told her to do and she forces another full-body twitch out of her muscles and one of her hands ends up pressed against John's knee (fell to his knees at her side as soon as he saw her splayed out on the floor like so many of the murder victims they've seen in their time working together). The denim of his jeans is rough against her knuckles; John's body heat seeping through the material is reassuring.

The sirens reach a deafening volume and then die away completely and Sherlock forces her eyes open (when did she close them?), sees blue lights strobing through the lace curtains opposite.

"Oh thank god," John breathes out. "Stay with me, Sherlock, okay? The paramedics will be here in a minute, but I need you to stay awake till then."

Sherlock does her best (not because John asked her to, but because she doesn't like how panicked John had sounded), but she finds herself drifting off, eyelids fluttering shut, after only a few moments. She's still somewhat aware of the world around her, but she doesn't pay it any mind.

At least not until Lestrade arrives.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asks, his voice somewhat jolting Sherlock out of her stupor. Sherlock wonders for a moment why Lestrade is here, since a shots-fired call wouldn't have gone to the Met's violent crimes unit, until she realizes that John must've called him while he was securing the back door. "Is she all right?"

"She's been drugged," John replies shortly. "Same as that one, apparently." Sherlock had almost forgotten Irene's assistant on the floor only feet away and is almost inappropriately proud of John for deducing the cause of her unconsciousness. "Supposedly non-fatal, but I'm not willing to relax until she's had a full blood panel done."

Things get confusing after that; too much is happening too quickly for Sherlock's drugged mind to keep track of it all. Much later, she's able to piece just a bit of it together, to realize that the paramedics entered the room just then and got Sherlock loaded onto a stretcher, calling out vital signs and orders to each other, their words blurring together in an unintelligible babble of sounds. 

Sherlock doesn't remember being carried out of Adler's house and put into an ambulance, but she has a clear sense memory of being in motion, of sirens blaring very nearby, of feeling safe because John's hand is wrapped firmly around hers.

And then she doesn't remember anything at all.

\------

The sheets against her skin are scratchy.

"Shh, it's okay. You're okay. Shh."

There's a hand against her cheek. Sherlock turns her face into its warmth.

"John?"

"Go back to sleep, Sherlock," John tells her. "I'll be right here when you wake up."

John's lips press against her forehead and linger there. Sherlock falls asleep again before he pulls away.

\------

_Something's wrong._

Sherlock isn't sure what, exactly, is wrong, but she trusts her instincts and her instincts are currently all but shouting at her that something's not right.

She isn't in her own bed, or John's. The mattress is too firm and too narrow, and the light slanting across her face all wrong for her to be inside their flat. So where is she?

It's a simple question, but she can't _think_. Something is _wrong_.

"Sherlock, open your eyes." John's voice, steady but with a faint undercurrent of worry. "Come on, love, open your eyes for me."

It takes far too much effort, but Sherlock manages to crack her eyes open just the tiniest bit. All she can see is John's face and it's the best thing she can imagine seeing right now.

"Hello," he whispers and Sherlock wonders if she's imagining the tremor in his voice. She's definitely not imagining the shaking of John's fingers against her cheek.

"What happened?" she asks. Her throat is dry and she has to swallow twice before she can ask, "Why am I in hospital?" It's only after she's asked the question that she realizes that's where she is; she's in a private room, but there's an IV in her arm and she can hear footsteps in the corridor.

"What's the last thing you remember?" John asks her in return, settling back into his chair and taking her hand. Sherlock instantly disregards her most recent memories, all of them scattered impressions of _John_ and _hospital_ and _safe_ , and focuses on what came before that.

"I was drugged," she says after a moment. "Adler stuck a needle in my arm and stole her phone back." She presses the hand not cradled in John's grasp against her ribs, tender where Adler struck her. "I'm afraid I didn't make it easy for her."

"Shocking," John mutters, but his relief is evident. He had clearly worried that Adler's little drug cocktail had done more than just knock Sherlock out. "You'll probably be woozy for a few hours more, but thankfully whatever was in that syringe was designed to knock you out, not cause lasting harm."

Sherlock nods, but doesn't say anything. She's already sick of this hospital with it's too-thin scratchy sheets and its incessant noise and its awful antiseptic smell. She wants to go home, to her own bed and blankets and John and the quiet that permeates the walls when it's just the two of them together after a case.

(Not that this case is _over_ , strictly speaking, but Sherlock is willing to make an exception this one time.)

"Take me home," she says, rolling on her side and curling her body around John's hand clasped in hers.

"Soon," he promises. He presses a kiss against her cheek (and Sherlock can't help but remember Adler's lips against her skin and she _hates_ that she's remembering that now when it's not important anymore, not when it's John's lips on her skin) and says, "Try to rest, please."

Sherlock doesn't sleep again, but she does doze for a bit, stirring only when the doctor finally deigns to make an appearance and announce that she's fit to go home so long as she won't be alone.

"We live together," John assures Sherlock's doctor. "I'll make sure she doesn't overexert herself."

Sherlock doesn't bother listening to the doctor's response, just grabs her clothes (neatly folded on the table beside the bed) and yanks the curtained partition closed so that she can get out of the awful hospital pyjamas she's been forced to wear all night.

The doctor is gone by the time Sherlock is dressed. "Where's my coat?" she asks John. There's a thought niggling at the back of her mind, like she should know the answer to that question, but she can't quite grasp it.

"You don't remember?" John looks worried; his eyebrows are furrowed causing the lines on his forehead to become even more pronounced and even now, when Sherlock is trying to figure out what he's not telling her, she wants desperately to press her fingertips against them.

"I remember that you were distracted by Ms. Adler's attire, so I gave her my coat to wear," Sherlock says slowly, trying to remember if Adler was still wearing it when she left Sherlock drugged on the floor. "She was still wearing it when she escaped, wasn't she?"

"I'm sorry," John says and Sherlock wants to ask him why he's apologizing for something that was clearly out of his control, but she's tired and isn't in the mood to listen to John go on about responsibility or sentiment or whatever it is that's caused him to apologize.

"Never mind," Sherlock tells him, making a beeline for the door and freedom beyond. "Mycroft can replace it and everything in it's pockets as part of our remuneration." 

Sherlock is discharged with no problem (owing to the fact that she has John deal with the nurses and paperwork while she people-watches in the waiting room) and soon enough they're in a cab headed home. Sherlock presses her nose into the collar of John's jacket (that he wrapped around her shoulders outside the hospital and refused to take back when she tried to shrug out of it) and is comforted by the lingering scent of John's shampoo.

John lays his hand on her knee and that single point of contact isn't enough, could never be enough for Sherlock, and so she scoots over the centerline of the seat until they're pressed together from shoulder to toe and wraps both of her hands around his before laying them in her lap.

"Are you sure you're okay?" John asks after several minutes. 

"Fine," Sherlock replies, studying the hangnail on John's left thumb. 

"Sherlock," John starts, but Sherlock cuts him off with a shake of her head.

She's not fine, and even though it's glaringly obvious to the both of them, it's not something that she wants to discuss right now. Possibly ever.

"Okay," John concedes.

The rest of the journey passes in silence, the kind that's not quite comfortable, but not to the point of being truly _un_ comfortable. The quality of silence isn't something Sherlock would have noticed before John, but now she can't help but analyze it. She isn't sure she likes the fact that she can't just let it go.

She lets John help her from the cab when they reach home even though she doesn't really need it. John is a caregiver and takes comfort in the mundane and so Sherlock lets him have this: his hand on her elbow leading her into the building, helping her off with his jacket, his arm around her waist as they mount the stairs to the flat.

He settles her gently on the couch, but she doesn't relinquish her hold on him when he tries to move away. "You didn't sleep last night," she says, eyeing the dark circles under his eyes, "and you're exhausted." John doesn't put up a fight when she tugs on his hand and sinks onto the couch next to her and practically collapses into her lap, face against her stomach, his hand under her shirt and pressed against the skin of her back.

"Just for a few minutes," John mumbles, his breathing already slowing. Sherlock settles a hand against the back of his head, her fingers rubbing circles against his scalp.

Sherlock rests her head against the back of the couch and listens to John breathing and tries (and fails) to not think about a gun to John's head and how completely wrong things could've gone yesterday.

She's still trying not to think about it when she hears the front door open and then shut, followed by footsteps on the stairs. There's really only one person it could be, and it's the last person Sherlock ever wants to see in her flat again.

"You set us up, you bastard," Sherlock hisses at Mycroft the moment he walks through the doorway. Mycroft, who doesn't even have the grace to look abashed that he almost got his own sister killed by overzealous CIA agents.

"I used what means were available to me in order to accomplish an objective," Mycroft tells her once he's seated in John's chair, umbrella propped against his knee. "The mission was a failure and now there are two dead American operatives in the home of the dominatrix to the stars. It's a diplomatic situation just waiting to blow up in our faces."

"No, what you did was send us in there underinformed and completely unprepared," Sherlock counters, her fingers itching to wipe the smug look off of Mycroft's face; John's head in her lap is the only thing holding her back and she presses her palm flat against the back of his neck and does her damnedest to forget the sight of a gun barrel pressed there. "And those men wouldn't be dead if they'd not tried to _kill us first_."

"Yes, well, there's nothing to be done about that now," Mycroft brushes her off. "The issue at play now is containment. You little stunt with the gun ensured that the police would be involved and the likelihood of this not getting out to the press is practically nonexistent now. I thought I told you to keep your actions low-profile."

"And I told you that I can't solve a case without all the facts," Sherlock throws back at him. "You've no one to blame but yourself for this entire farce."

"Regardless of who is to blame, it cannot be disputed that our objective was not met," Mycroft says. He flicks his umbrella up like a rapier and keeps his eyes on it rather than looking towards Sherlock. "As such, your services will no longer be needed. You'll be compensated for services rendered, but from this moment on, you are to forget this matter ever existed."

"Gladly," Sherlock says, though she knows it won't be as easy as that to delete the sight of a gun barrel to John's head; she's damn well going to try, though, even if it takes the rest of her life. "You can leave now."

Mycroft stands slowly and makes his way towards the door at a leisurely pace, still not bothering to look in Sherlock's direction. He does, however, pause at the threshold with his back still to Sherlock. "For what it's worth, Sherlock, I am glad that you and John are both all right," he tells her.

Sherlock doesn't call him on his bullshit, however she desperately wants to. She doesn't have the energy to fight him about it right now, though, but she does call after his retreating back, "You owe me a new coat and phone!"

"No, I don't," Mycroft's voice floats up the stairs followed by the sound of the front door shutting.

Sherlock's eyes narrow as she examines the sitting room, looking for whatever it was that Mycroft saw that convinced him that Sherlock's coat isn't lost. She slips out from under John's head, runs her fingers through his hair and presses her lips to the thin skin at his temple when he stirs, and steps over to the doorway. She retraces Mycroft's steps as closely as she can, right down the the movement of his head, but it's only when she sits in John's chair that she sees it.

On the back of the door, hanging on it's normal hook, is Sherlock's coat.

Sherlock is out of her seat like a shot. The keys in her coat pocket jingle when she pulls it down and there's the answer as to how Ms. Adler got in the flat. Her phone is still in her pocket, too, but she discovers it hasn't been left alone when she goes to unlock it. 

The background image, which had been a subtle black and gray geometric pattern yesterday, is now a self-portrait of Irene Adler in what looks to be Sherlock's bed. There's one unread text message in her log from a blocked number.

Sherlock reads it, contemplates deleting it, sets her phone down on the coffee table instead and curls up behind John on the very edge of the couch and tries not to think.

\------

_You did well but not well enough, my dear. Your photographs are safe and will remain that way so long as you don't seek me out again. Farewell, Sherlock Holmes._

\------

"So what was the CIA after then?" John asks later over a late lunch slash early dinner at Speedy's after Sherlock has (grudgingly) recounted Mycroft's earlier visit.

"Probably something very similar to what we were after," Sherlock says. She drags a chip though the puddle of ketchup on her plate and pops it into her mouth. She chews and swallows before continuing. "Or whatever it was that we weren't informed we were after."

"D'you think we'll be seeing Irene Adler again?" John asks before taking an inadvisably large bite out of his sandwich. 

Sherlock watches him chew for a long moment, trying to order her thoughts about Irene Adler into something more coherent than they currently are. "I think," she begins and then pauses. She's still not sure exactly _what_ she thinks about Adler; all Sherlock knows is that her feelings about Adler, whatever they may be, are complicated.

"I think," she begins again, "that we'll never hear of Irene Adler again, either because she'll disappear herself so completely or because someone else will do it for her."

"You think she's going to get herself killed," John says. It's not a question.

"If she's not careful, yes," Sherlock says. She steals John's water glass and takes a sip. "She's not as clever as she thinks she is, though she is cleverer than most would give her credit for. It's a dangerous combination."

"Know that from experience, do you?" John asks cheekily, stealing his glass back.

"I'm every bit as clever as I think I am," Sherlock says, though not as boastfully a she might've done before she met John.

"No you're not," John tells her without missing a beat. From anyone else, it would have been a disparaging remark; from John, it's a somewhat-gentle reminder that even Sherlock can make mistakes and while the reminder isn't always pleasant, it's periodically needed.

Going after Irene Adler was a mistake, Sherlock can see that now. Even though she's still missing all of the facts, it's clear enough that Adler was up to something bigger than being in possession of scandalous royal photos. Part of Sherlock will always chafe at the thought of never knowing what that something bigger was, at having failed to figure it out before the woman disappeared off the face of the planet.

"You're not going to blog about this, are you?" Sherlock asks. John looks nonplussed at the seeming sudden change of topic, but it's something that she needs to know. John has blogged about Sherlock failing to solve a case before, but never before has Sherlock failed at something of this magnitude. 

It's not just Sherlock's ego that prompts the question, though her ego isn't to be discounted completely. She told Mycroft earlier that the entire situation was a farce and she still thinks that's true. It isn't something that she thinks should be out there for the entire world to see.

Also, it's still classified. Not officially, of course, but Sherlock has not doubt that Mycroft could make it so on nothing more than a whim.

"No, I don't think I will," John says. "At least not for a good long while. Years. Possibly decades. I'm not too eager to revisit the image of that CIA agent holding a loaded gun to your face."

"Good. That's good."

"Sherlock?"

"Yes?"

"Let's talk about something else now."

"All right."

\------

Years later, John includes "A Scandal in Belgravia" in his second book. Sherlock receives a file in the mail two days after the book is released. Clipped to the front of the file is a note from Mycroft; inside are evidence photographs of an old jewelled cell phone, copies of official reports on the contents of said phone, numerous surveillance photographs of two women, and a copy of a marriage certificate made out to Irene Adler and Katherine Norton.

Sherlock slips Mycroft's note inside the folder and then puts the whole thing on the bookshelf between copies of John's two books and doesn't give it another thought.

\------

_I thought you'd like to know that it was a happy ending for all. -MH_

 

**end**


End file.
